Halo: The Last Stand of Battalion 324.
---- *'Notice' Work on this article will stop for aproximately one week. ---- This is a fanon of a last stand of a Battalion of Marines on a Forerunner space station. It is a tale of hardship, sadness, and valor against impossible odds. Charecters PFC Johnny Lands Staff Sargent Amelia Johnson PFC Danny "McBoom" Banstan PFC Richard Davis PFC Arnold Banks PFC Jack Hobart Lieutenant Michael Emberee Commander Samuel Ramseth Captain Jason Mitchell High Admiral Mason Baron Flight Officer Third Class Jace Williams Flight Officer Second Class Lisa Mill Major William Stort ONI Operative Nightshadow Ships and Locales UNSC Light Before Dawn Deep Space Anomaly Number 3529/830 C709/B Gladius-class Stealthfighter UNSC Planet Clearwater VI Prolouge //Deep Space //July 19th, 2542,0400 Hours //Aboard UNSC Light Before Dawn The dark reaches of space went on and on in front of the bridge of the UNSC Light Before Dawn, lovinly referred to by the crew as the LBD. Captain Jason Mitchell sat in the command chair of the damaged frigate, frowning at the warning klaxons blaring throughout the bridge. "Williams, where the hell are we?" asked Mitchells in a trimmed, cautious voice. "Sir," said Williams, the navigations officer. "We appear to have exited slipspace, and judging by the background of the stars, we're definitely not in the Clearwater system." Mitchells breathed a sigh of relief. After three months in slipspace wondering where they were heading, he had been afraid they had not gone anywhere. Mitchells closed his eyes and let his mind wander, thinking back to the events several months prior. The twelve covenant ships had appeared insystem...half a dozen destroyers, more than enough firepower to take out the feeble defense group surrounding Clearwater VI even without their escort of frigates. He thought back to the devastating battle...the Vigilance going up in a huge fireball...the Courage lost, a molten hole burned clear through it's hull...the Darkest Hour, floating dead in space, bridge utterly destroyed...the planet's crust, full of tourists and families, burning to glass under the hours and hours of glassing that must have followed the LBD's escape—Mitchells cut these thoughts from his mind, they would do nothing to help him right now. "Wilton, whats the status of our engines?" Mitchells asked, mind returning to the present situation. "Sir, the subspace drives are running at 82%...fairly good, considering the damage we took at Clearwater. The slipspace drive is another story though. The random jump we made seems to have damaged them to badly for us to repair them without a shipyard. We'd better find a place to hunker down, see if we can't lay low and send out a distress signal." Mitchells took the news in gratefully. He couldn't have hoped for more, with the ships present condition. It had taken a real beating at Clearwater...Mitchells himself didn't know how he had done it. Standing up in his chair, Mitchells turned to Lieutenant Brown, the communications officer. "Get a SOS prepared, then send the order down to the techies in the cryo bay to get ready for an emergency thaw if nesscessary. Send the SOS as soon as it is prepared," Mitchells turned to Lieutenant Ambrose, and continued. "I want a scan of our area five minutes ago!" he bellowed, then sat back down. Several minutes ticked by, and Mitchells yawned quietly, he had been sleeping in his command chair when the klaxons woke him. Finally, Ambrose spoke up. "Sir, scans complete...you may want to see this." Mitchells frowned, and got up out of his seat and walked over to Ambrose's duty station. On it where dozens of readings, which Mitchells could not immediatly understand. However, Ambrose did that for him. "It was impossible to get a proper scan at first sir, the extra energy generated from the jump ensured of that...however, we just cleared it a minute ago, and I found this." Ambrose typed a few keyes into his terminal, and the screen cleared and a single object came into focus: a large asteroid with a structure jutting out, and a thin, wispy looking field surrounding it that Mitchells took to be atmosphere. "Its a large asteroid, no idea how it got here, and appears to have several structues on it's surface, most notably this big one," he pointed at the structure that Mitchells had spotted. "It appears to be generating it's own atmosphere, maybe by some of those structures, and is floating through the sector at an extremely slow speed. It looks big enough to land the ship on sir." Mitchells pondered this for a second. What was it doing out here in the middle of nowhere? How did it have an atmosphere? Who put those installations on it? With no obvious answers to these questions, he wondered what to do...then decided to act. "Williams, set an immediate course for the object, Mchenry, arm the Archer pods, rows A through N. Ambrose keep scanning, and let me know if you pick up anything unusual." Mitchells sat back down in his seat, and watched as the object got bigger and bigger as the LBD approached...